All it took was one look at bride Courtney’s wedding dress, and we were in love. Can you blame us? It isn’t every day you come across a bride willing to inject a little color and pattern into her wedding gown, much less do The Worm while wearing it at her reception! One other thing we adore about this wedding — not only was it a special day for the obvious reasons, but it was also the 30th birthday for both the bride AND the groom. Thanks to Paige of Awake Photography for capturing this beauty.

From the bride, Courtney: We had a lot of contributing factors in determining the details, style and theme of our wedding. First and foremost it was both my and my husband’s 30th birthdays. We were born on the very same day, year and everything, and decided that we would celebrate our Birthdays and love together. It was a little difficult to decorate for a birthday/wedding because we wanted the elegance of a wedding but the fun of a 30th Birthday Party. Our friends and families flew in from all over the country to join our little celebration (in the middle of the week) making it a destination wedding and in the end we just wanted to make our guests feel comfortable and enjoy the party.

Because so few guests knew us as a couple we focused on a some details to make our guests feel more included in our journey. My in-laws were very generous and invited all the guests to the rehearsal dinner where we were played a slide show that one of the bridesmaids’ mothers put together for Davy and I. We also tailored our ceremony to compliment us as a couple. Nothing generic, we wanted the words the officiant said to actually carry meaning for us, we wrote our own vows and let doves go as a symbol of our love and new journey. We also littered small meaningful tributes to our family members that our no longer with us, like my mother (22 years ago we let a dove go at my mother’s funeral… the dove on our invitations, place cards and pillows were in fact a nod to my mother, and then my dad surprised us with two doves to release at the last minute) . We wanted it to be classic and elegant yet casual and simple.

Besides having a somewhat rustic yet romantic 30th birthday theme thing going on but I also tried to keep things cohesive with an overall wine theme. With some help, we managed to get a hold of quite a few wine, mini wine and champagne bottles as well as corks. We used the wine bottles as centerpieces and decor around the venue and dessert table. We used corks to hold the escort cards, and gave out custom Travel Corkscrews as favors. All of our decorations were DIY: I cleaned and spray painted all the wine bottles, stained all the wooden bases for the centerpieces, made the table numbers, spray painted black Ikea lanterns gold for centerpieces and to flank the aisle, sewed and screened all of the canvas pillows, made the canvas “Happy Birthday Omlsteds Banner”, made the cork place card holders, designed and made dove escort cards, all the signs, and did the guestbook as well.

Any advice for couples planning their wedding day now? The sense of smell can help evoke powerful and vivid memories, one of the best things my husband and did before our wedding was pick out new cologne and perfume together. We went to Neiman Marcus and worked with a salesman to narrow it down to three options each, ultimately giving the other person the final say. Now when we wear our new scents the smells take us right back to our wedding day and all those feelings come rushing back. To match colors from the stationery to dresses, flowers, tablecloths and decorations can be really difficult, so keep in mind that you may have to be flexible to keep it affordable. This sort of thing may not matter to you but if it does, consider making your primary color something you know doesn’t vary wildly. Last but NOT least… it is only one silly day! When you think about your wedding don’t focus on the details, focus on the celebration and love. Envision yourself enjoying every minute of it and not minding when things go wrong. Almost everything you could think of went wrong at our wedding, BUT at the end of the day I had an amazing husband I get to spend the rest of my life with and that matters a whole lot more than having one perfect day.